Islanders website: John Hill reported on last night's business club meeting.
Newsday: Islander blog had a recap of last night's business club event with Chris Dey's comments.
Newsday: Katie Strang attended last night's business club event with Garth Snow's comments that we're a tight-knit organization and the situation with confidence in Wade Dubielewicz was not as big of a deal as what people are making it out to be. In addition, the gm said everything is great regarding his relationship with the coach but prefers that situations like this be kept within the four walls.
He also spoke with Rick DiPietro after surgery and everything is great according to the gm.
Ted Nolan for his part felt there was no disagreement at all, that he and Snow agreed on the conditioning, that Dubie was hurt in the off season, so he couldn't come in and that sometimes that's construed as lack of confidence, but it was maybe a lack of communication.
The coach also plans on thanking Dubielewicz, trying to maintain a friendship as he spoke about the business side vs the relationship side as he again praised Dubielewicz and maintained he never lost faith in his ability.
NYI Fan Central Comments:
Bottom line Greg Logan made another mountain out of nothing and Garth Snow made it very easy for him to do so. Even a harmless comment about raising an eyebrow (starting Dubie in second March Ranger game) is all it took for Mr Logan to create something.
The Newsday beatwriter did not even attend to face Snow or Nolan together or do the blog on the business meeting.
Garth Snow for his part has to watch what he says a lot better. He talks of keeping things inside the four walls and they are a tight-knit family and all that but then he goes and tells everyone about Dubielewicz conditioning and that the coaching staff had no confidence in him, requiring a public comment from the coach. He made light of Dubie's conditioning back in April, once was enough.
Tight-knit families keep things in house, you publicly thank Dubielewicz (as Snow did in April) report we could not get together on a contract and that's it.
Charles Wang, Garth Snow, Ted Nolan need to understand the few people covering this team are not die-hard Islander fans who have been on this beat for decades like you would see with a Red Fisher, Tim Panaccio, Kevin-Paul Dupont. It's a paid job assignment, little more and when an opportunity presents itself to stir something up they will take that as far as they can.
What I personally do not like is Greg Logan has no real competition from several papers or writers, he's not struggling to produce stories or scoops and should not have to go out of his way to present an issue as more than it is unless the Newsday sports editor, Hank Winnicki demands he cover the team in this manner?
It does a lot of damage with the fanbase too because many folks cannot get past the headline before they start ripping the team and just tune out everything else.
Michigan Live: Ansar Khan has former Islander general manager Mike Milbury's comments that he offered Chris Osgood a
long-term contract, $16 million for four years, and he turned it down as an indication of what the Islander organization thought of him.
NYI Fan Central Comments:
Congratulations to Chris Osgood on winning another Stanley Cup with the Red Wings.
Only Mike Milbury would trade Roberto Luongo, draft Rick DiPietro first overall and then offer another goalie a four year/sixteeen million contract who had a great first month in New York but was hardly a stopper after that.
Ozzie signing a four year deal here would have likely meant DiPietro would have been traded.
Of course this is old news that everyone knew when Osgood was still here at the time the contract offers were reported.
Updated 4:00pm:
Detroit News: Ted Kulfan has Wings owner Mike Mike Illitch comment today comparing his teams four in cups in eleven years with that of the Islanders four in a row and what a great organization they were.